The road less traveled:

A reinterpretation

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

-          Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

“Robert Frost was right, taking the road less traveled can make all the difference. But that road isn’t necessarily the road with the least traffic. It may be the road that we, personally, have traveled less. The introvert may need to get out of the house, engage with the world, get public. The extrovert may need to stay home and read a book.”

-          Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights

Photo by Mihail Macri on Unsplash

This past week, I’ve had Matthew McConaughey’s smooth preacher prose in my ear while preparing to host for Thanksgiving and picking up after my two-year-old. Half the time, I wasn’t paying close attention to what he was saying, but the sound of his voice drew me in and through his book. Every so often, my attention would snag on a line, and I’d find myself pausing the audio so my thoughts could catch up. His take on Robert Frost’s classic poem stopped me for the longest.   

My life may not look like Frost’s road “less traveled by” to anyone on the outside looking in. Married to a consultant, with a kid, working for a law firm. But as McConaughey frames it, whether a decision is novel in the grand sense is less important than whether it is novel for you.

Some of the decisions I am most grateful for have come from taking the road that I “personally, have traveled less.” Or taking a well-traveled road for my own reasons. For me, the bookworm, this meant becoming a lawyer to burst my happy-in-school bubble and grapple with the corporate American fray that no one in my family of teachers had entered. Then it meant veering from the typical law path into a law-firm job focused on writing and coaching with more room for creative writing—something that has made me happier than I ever imagined being in the law. And it meant waiting a long time to have a kid because I wasn’t sure, and then choosing to have one even while I was still unsure.

More recently, taking the road less traveled has meant dragging my introvert self across the country and into the world of social media and podcasts to promote a book. At first, this felt like trying on another person’s clothes. Uncomfortable at best, wrong at worst. For the first two months, I announced repeatedly to my patient husband that this public-speaking business may never be for me.

But I kept going. I told myself I owed it to Maud and her story; I owed it to myself for the eight years I had spent with that story. But I’m not sure that was my main driving force. I knew my efforts were unlikely to make a big difference in sales or how many readers the book reached. I felt myself coming up against an internal barrier, and I wanted to know what I’d find on the other side.

Now, six months later, I am surprised to hear myself say that I really enjoy speaking events. That I love talking about deep themes in the book. That people aren’t as mean as I thought they’d be. That even when they say something that hurts, I’m okay a day later. Or, more often now, an hour later. That I am stronger that I thought.

“The introvert may need to get of the house, engage with the world, get public.” Several of my newsletters this year (here and here) have focused on honoring my introvert. Owning it in conversation. Owning my sensitivity as valuable. All that is true.

It’s also true that I’m grateful for the times I’ve chosen to take a road that is new to me. Taken once, it’s easier to take again. And life starts to branch.